In-class laptop use sparks backlash, possibly lower grades

Even in cases where laptop use is integrated into lesson plans, the …

In recent years, there have been a number of high-profile programs that provided laptops for all students within an education system, some of which have equipped an entire state's student population with portable computers. With laptop prices plunging in recent years, college students have adopted the laptop as their platform of choice at the same time that many universities have been rolling out campus-wide wireless Internet access. Recent studies of the educational value of in-class computer use, however, are suggesting that it's difficult for these programs to improve classroom performance, and there are some signs that a backlash may be brewing.

Mixed results in primary education

The most obvious use of laptops in the classroom has been the adoption of state-wide programs that are intended to create a 1:1 ratio of laptops to students in the classroom. These programs are intended to do everything from improve technological literacy to raise standardized test scores, but a recent analysis of the published literature on the topic suggests that the results are mixed.

The 1:1 laptop programs do seem to help with the students' ability to use the technology they're exposed to, and a variety of studies show what might be an unexpected benefit: improved writing skills. Apparently, the ease of using a word processor, along with the ability to go back and modify things that would otherwise have been committed to paper, helps students learn how to write more coherent and persuasive text.

Outside of these areas, however, the benefits of 1:1 laptop availability are mixed. Different studies have found changes in math and science test performance that were inconsistent. In general, the authors argue, the benefits of laptops come in cases where the larger educational program has been redesigned to incorporate their unique capabilities, and the teachers have been trained in order to better integrate laptop use into the wider educational experience. Both of these processes are resource-intensive, and the degree of their success may vary from classroom to classroom even in a single school, which is likely to explain the wide variability in the results.

Distractions on campus

Similar things are likely to apply at the college level; unless the use of laptops is focused on providing a relevant portion of the lesson plan, they'll (obviously) wind up being irrelevant at best, and a distraction at worst. A description of the use of laptops at the US Military Academy at West Point bears that out. Even in an environment where the students might be expected to be disciplined, the authors describe how instructors learned to identify when students were distracted by surfing the web or engaging in online chat.

Of course, given their popularity with college students, laptops are showing up in classrooms where they have nothing to do with lesson plans at all. The primary justification is obvious: most computer users can type faster than they can write. As long as a class isn't too symbol- or diagram-heavy, a laptop is an efficient note-taking device. Since many campuses now sport ubiquitous wireless access, a laptop can be helpful for looking up relevant information, a process that has the potential to enhance the academic experience.

That's the theory. The reality is that everything from IM chats to online shopping excursions take place over the in-class ether, distracting everyone involved: the student, his or her neighbors, and potentially the professors, who may watch their grip on the classroom slowly slipping away. It's not much of a surprise, then, that a backlash appears to be brewing.

The report, in the Boulder Daily Camera (via the Chronicle of Higher Education), describes how even students are becoming irate about being distracted by their fellows, with one reporting that his classmates were watching movies that competed for his attention. Some professors have instituted total bans on the use of laptops in the classroom. Although these stories all come from one campus, the experience is clearly not unique; in one class I helped teach, a guest lecturer ended his talk with an extended complaint about the regular laptop-notetakers, who he assumed were working on something else.

What's to be done? Outright bans are unlikely to be a long-term solution as students' reliance on digital technology is only likely to increase. One alternative—wandering the classroom to monitor what students are doing (used both at the University of Colorado-Boulder and West Point)—isn't going to work in all contexts.

At CU, one professor is taking a fairly simple approach to dealing with the problem of in-class distraction. She simply registers who the heaviest laptop users in her classroom are, and then tracks their grades. If there are signs that it's a distraction that's reflected in their grades, she points that out to them, and suggests they consider changing their habits. Our own Jacqui Cheng suggests a variation on this: make all laptop users sit in the back, so that they only distract each other, and let them figure out whether their grades are suffering on their own.

In any case, whatever solutions are found now are likely to be a temporary fix, and the shrinking of laptops and rise of smartphones are going to provide the next generation of students with a wealth of new, and harder to manage, distractions.

Huge problem with Jacqui's idea: students who regularly sit in back of classes already have atypically lower grades. Causality isnt established though: could be because people who want to ignore the class or are too shy to participate sit in the back, could be because they simply can't see the board/hear what the prof is saying. Either way, ghettoizing the laptop users (which in most of my classes has been over 95%) is probably not a good thing.

I'd suggest figuring out a way to get the class to enforce class policies on their own. Maybe just establishing policies that make it easier for students to narc on annoyingly distracting fellow students. For example, I'd have loved to have a faceless way of reporting the guy who used to watch streaming baseball games while continually disrespecting the professor, like he had some personal beef with the guy.

Or maybe just figure out a way to block access to shopping sites while in class, by coordinating network login names with class schedules held by the university admins.

Honestly though, it's a matter of discipline, and i agree with Greasy Breakfast in that. It's the student's responsibility to keep their grades together, and if they prof suggests that maybe the laptop is serving as a bigger distraction than it is a benefit, I might just take that into account.

I've said it before, 12 years of reading, writing and arithmetic is far better than computer skills. Anyone who is competent with language and math can get the hang of a computer with no trouble at all. "using" a computer these days means email, surfing, etc. and not programming, so having a computer to do these things is simply a lifestyle issue not an educational one. I am totally in favor of the prof having a laptop and projector for any multimedia necessary to enhance the learning experience.

So grammar and spell checking improves writing? Take away the crutches and see if the writing really is any better.

The most important thing I learned from your article and that I hope all teachers will incorporate into their lectures is: use tons of symbols and diagrams!!!!!

If a prof is so back bending that he/she allows laptop use in class I would hope a requirement would be to have the student email the notes at the end of class so there is some evidence of paying attention.

A student of mine used a tablet pc to take notes and shared them with me, and that really really worked out well- no I'm not against the technology at all. Now I need to stop surfing and get back to work, darn this computer and all its whimsical distractions.

Being both a laptop toting student and an instructor in a tech heavy class (C++ programming), I can sort of see this argument from both sides. For me, if the instructor/professor was just yammering at us, especially if the information was present in the text book, if I went to class at all, I would frequently tune out and distract myself with my laptop. Alternatively, if the class was interactive or interesting, the laptop was ONLY for notes, and I found that my ability to pay attention and contribute was greatly enhanced. If nothing else, if a question came up that no one had an answer to, it could be looked up online and used to further the discussion.

As an instructor, I have to say, it is NOT my role to police the students. I will do all in my power to help them learn, I will answer question after question, spend hours helping them outside class, but if they choose to ignore me, that is their right. They are paying me to present the material and help them learn it. Emphasis on help. I am not their mother, nor am I their friend. If they take an active role, I will help them to the best of my ability, but if they do not, I will simply let them fall by the wayside. It's interesting that after teaching this way for 5 years, I've only ever failed a few students, and I'm known as one of the hardest graders in the department. I don't give many As, either.

Basically, this can be summed up quite nicely by Greasy Breakfast's comment, which I quote here for truth:

quote:

The key was discipline. If I stayed on task, I could produce visually and a data rich notes which made me the envy of study groups. At my worst, I was roaming Azeroth...

Symbol heavy note taking is definitely slower on a laptop. In such a class you are better off taking notes by hand and rewriting them. Using a couple different colored highlighters helps a ton as well.

In non-symbol heavy lectures it's a different ball game.

One thing I noticed in my time in college. The more notes the professor supplied, the less the students payed attention. One class I had, I remember that the prof supplied us with audio tapes of his lectures as well as ample handouts that covered anything he put up on a projector or wrote on the board. In that class, people never showed up and still got an A.

Imo, there is no magic method. Each student should do what works, and the professor should adapt their teaching style to cater to as many of those methods as possible.

And VibeDog, it isn't "back bending" at all. It's a way to have the students be responsible for their own education. Choose to be distracted in class? So be it, but accept the consequences of that choice. Personal responsibility. If they haven't learned it by the time they leave college, I doubt they ever will...

Edit: just wanted to observe, I see this thread becoming a popular one...and one with a lot of bitter disagreements from both sides of the fence on this issue.

Well DUH! Students that want to goof off in class will do it no matter what media they are using to take notes. Back in the dark ages when I went to college (yes, I used a slide rule not a calculator). I doodled, read magazines, did homework for other classes, wrote obscene poetry on the lapboards and a myriad of other anti-boredom measure. Now in the modern classroom we have laptops and I'm pretty sure I would be IMing, surfing and emailing. Hey, it's what I do in boring meetings at work now. Just leave them alone.

I had a CS class ~8 years ago where some guy would sit right in the middle of the classroom, put on headphones, and sit there watching anime. why even bother showing up if you're not going to pay any attention?

then there was the class with the guy who showed up with a "desktop replacement" laptop. the fans were ridiculously loud, but he eventually stopped bringing it (probably because it weighed 10lb)

Somehow I managed to learn everything I needed to in 4 years, in a time when notebooks didn't really exist in any usable form, and most students didn't even have their own computer. We used a computer lab (reach by walking about a mile through deep snow) and we liked it.

I don't know what a modern laptop could have possibly added to the experience. It certainly would have been far too tempting a distraction to me.

There is a relatively simple solution here - don't provide wi-fi in the classrooms.

As an instructor, I have to say, it is NOT my role to police the students. I will do all in my power to help them learn, I will answer question after question, spend hours helping them outside class, but if they choose to ignore me, that is their right. They are paying me to present the material and help them learn it. Emphasis on help. I am not their mother, nor am I their friend. If they take an active role, I will help them to the best of my ability, but if they do not, I will simply let them fall by the wayside. It's interesting that after teaching this way for 5 years, I've only ever failed a few students, and I'm known as one of the hardest graders in the department. I don't give many As, either.

This, x1,000,000.

Interestingly, many university departments and professors don't share this attitude, however. It always was weird to me when profs would religiously take attendance in their classes.

The smart ones said, "I don't take attendance, but there's usually a pretty close relationship between students who show up for sessions and people who do well in any given course. Your mileage may vary."

See, if I go into teaching, I think I'd take kind of a non-intrusive route. I fully agree that teachers shouldn't just stand up in front of the class and present material that has been posted online or handed out and nothing else. You don't really encourage a learning environment there. When I was a trainer at a technical company, I moved around the classroom more. It would let me see if people were having trouble with certain programs and falling behind, or if people were playing games, etc.

What I'd probably do is just see who is trying to keep up and who is obviously just there because of attendance policies. The people who are trying to pay attention or only occasionally give in to distractions (and really, who doesn't?), I'd do standard grading of where I'd round up or do some bonus for effort and dedication. Those who were playing WoW, watching porn, or whatever else, grades get no rounding at all. That way it's a subtle bonus to those who show initiative without blowing the scale way off.

But yeah, especially on the college level, you're not there to babysit them or be their parent. You're there to present information in a comprehensive but understanding fashion. Those who don't want to pay attention, won't. It doesn't matter if it's laptops, magazines, or the campus paper with its crossword puzzle (which was the contention in my day). People who want to slack will always find a way. Computers can just add a level of visibility to the process for the professors to gauge by.

Clearly this is a case of a person's will power. It is not the fault of the tool that the worker fails. The room could be completely/perfectly free of distractions and you will still have a number of students do poorly and pay no attention.

For some folks it's essential. I have a weird disability that makes writing very hard (the physical act of putting words on paper with a pen/pencil). I don't have the problem when using a keyboard, so if I want to take notes it's far more effective for me to use a laptop then pen and paper. I'd be more then happy to sit in the back, although I think it's pretty certain you'll get a better grade by sitting in the front, laptop user or no.

As an instructor, I have to say, it is NOT my role to police the students. I will do all in my power to help them learn, I will answer question after question, spend hours helping them outside class, but if they choose to ignore me, that is their right. They are paying me to present the material and help them learn it. Emphasis on help. I am not their mother, nor am I their friend. If they take an active role, I will help them to the best of my ability, but if they do not, I will simply let them fall by the wayside. It's interesting that after teaching this way for 5 years, I've only ever failed a few students, and I'm known as one of the hardest graders in the department. I don't give many As, either.

As a student, I agree 100%. You can't force people to want to listen. If you force students to be in class and take away their laptops, they'll just find something else to do that is equally distracting and continue to not pay attention. Just allow those that don't want to there to not attend, their grades may suffer, but that's their problem.

The only problem is that their failure, right or wrong, makes the school look bad and people consider the student's performance a reflection of the teacher's competency.

There's probably a link between attendance and grades, but I think most college students would attend class with or without attendance. I really doubt that the people who would not have gone to class otherwise will do much better if they're forced to attend. In my own experience, I've found that the better professors don't take attendance.

"but a recent analysis of the published literature on the topic suggests that the results are mixed. "

Perhaps we should bring back the rod. The failure here is that of an educational establishment that is stuck in the 19th century. But it is certainly the case that computers on their own will only serve as note taking machines. Serious use of computers in the educational process depends on software and a variety of computerized educational materials that we don't have yet. But real computerized education is likely to produce much more improvement than any of the schemes to pay teachers more. Particularly those that reward teachers for confoming to some institutionalized concept of medicocrity are likely to have limited value.

I had a PowerBook for my undergrad work. It was a boon in more ways than one. In courses where the professor was engaging and made the material interesting, my laptop was great for taking notes. In courses where the professor was about as dry as toast and made the material less interesting than watching paint dry, yet made attendance mandatory anyway and graded so easily that it was entirely possible to pay no attention to him whatsoever and still get an A in the course, my laptop and free WiFi helped keep me from wanting to cut my wrists rather than spend five hours a week in a purgatory of a class taught by a professor who didn't really give a damn if he was actually teaching anything or not.

I'm in a Master's programme now, and I take my MacBook Pro with me to every one of my courses. It's a good thing, too, because two of my professors have already had issues with the in-class computers attached to the projector, and it was only by loaning them my laptop that the course was able to proceed without moving to another classroom.

I hope to lecture at university after getting my Master's, and I'm certain there will be laptop users in my courses. Having been on the other side of the screen myself, I intend to do my best to make my lectures actually worth attending.

The university cares about the ratio of passing to failing. It is a measure, somewhat, of how well the school is doing. That is why they bounce you if your GPA gets too low. You are dragging down the average.

The whole "let them fail if they want to goof off" mentality is probably the correct choice for higher ed. In some instances, however, teachers are judged on how well students perform--regardless of weather or not said students actively seek out personal distractions. A room full of slackers in an otherwise engaging and well taught course will still have a low GPA. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, but we'll blame you anyway.

More often then not I do see students browsing Facebook or playing solitaire rather than listening to the professor. For me, those activities are too boring to justify removing my attention away from the prof, but I have seen many enthralled by their neighbors screens.

I have found that laptops are most distracting when the professor decides to show a movie. The professor will often turn the lights way down, yet people will still have their laptop screens set to the highest brightness setting, blinding anyone behind them. Sadly, it often take a few minutes for them to realize this.

Though I will admit, it is somewhat amusing to hear everyone start to mash on their keyboards every time a new slide appears on the screen.

The university cares about the ratio of passing to failing. It is a measure, somewhat, of how well the school is doing. That is why they bounce you if your GPA gets too low. You are dragging down the average.

Universities do care about the number of failing students in their classes, this is true. I teach a course that is a prereq to most of the upper level courses in my department. Given that this is the first time many of them see real programming--previous courses were about writing functions in scheme or java--it is a useful gauge of the probability of success many will have in the upper level courses.

While I don't give out As easily, I do give them. I also don't fail people easily, but I do fail them. It all comes down to the student in the end, and if I can document their progress (or lack thereof), my grades are backed all the way to the registrar. Being a grad student, that can be an issue. I've only ever been questioned once about a grade I gave out, and that was because the student was an athlete. The coach got mad, tried to put pressure on the department, but they supported me. Maybe that's rare, but I don't really know.

The fact is, poor performance in a class such as mine almost always comes down to effort on the part of the student. I admit this is not universal, but programming is like learning a foreign language. Don't practice it, you won't learn it. And then you fail.

Use of computers is necessary, as it is a programming course. Even if it wasn't though, I'd encourage people to have laptops, as searching your notes is MUCH easier if they are digital. And it frees up your eyes to pay attention, as most students nowadays touch type.

Lectures are like meetings. If the value of being present - and I mean fully present and engaged - is not immediately apparent, such that participants hedge their bets by bringing laptops to serve as distraction, then the lecture/meeting is worthless and the participants are better off saving that time and not attending at all.

Personally, I hate carrying a laptop around. When I was in college I left my laptop on my desk at my apartment and I went to class with my phone, a pen and a single sheet of paper. Lectures should either look forward to assigned reading or reiterate previously covered material, supported with exercises and in-class discussion. All of these benefit more from paying attention to the teacher than from trying to create superior "notes".

It's a confluence of bad teaching and bad study habits, enabled by technology crutches and poor performance metrics. I mean, these are the students who require a "study guide" for each quiz! The first time I encountered that, I chuckled; my first three years of college were in Nigeria, where a request for a study guide would have earned the retort, "everything we've covered so far!"

There were many a class I didn't have to pay attention in to get an A in. So I would sit there and play games and keep and ear to whats going on. If something was interesting enough I would pay attention. Though I would also ask the teachers question every now and then while playing a game to make them think I was paying attention. Sometimes I would also lead them on to a discussion to waste time because I didn't feel like covering anything new.

In one of my current classes the teacher doesn't allow laptops and well I will break out the news paper while sitting in the front row right in front of him and read it. It may bug him but since I have a bit over 100% in his 400 level class I thinks he realizes I just don't need to pay total attention to get it.

In other words if teachers make the class hard enough so that you have to pay attention or interesting enough that you want to. There is no real problem brought by laptop.

That's not true at all. It's got everything to with how you absorb and process information. I had plenty of upper and lower division undergrad classes where I was not in front and got A's

There is a pretty strong correlation between where you sit and your eventual grade in the class. Obviously some of this is from self selection, but I doubt all of it. My grades certainly went up when I started sitting in the front of the class.

That's not true at all. It's got everything to with how you absorb and process information. I had plenty of upper and lower division undergrad classes where I was not in front and got A's

There is a pretty strong correlation between where you sit and your eventual grade in the class. Obviously some of this is from self selection, but I doubt all of it. My grades certainly went up when I started sitting in the front of the class.

More likely it is a symptom, rather than a cause. That is, you decided to be a more dedicated student, so you sat up front (for whatever reason). Sitting up front did not make you a more dedicated student.

I routinely sat in the back of the class, because I was better able to concentrate on the lecture when it was seen from afar, as opposed to right up in my face.

I think it has nothing to do with where you sit as a motivator, and more with the stereotype of "slackers sit in back, smart and motivated people sit in front". Some people also seem to think that sitting in front gets them more attention or more likely to be noticed in a beneficial way, but really you get noticed more just by showing up to office hours and asking basic questions on a regular basis.

The answer is really simple form my point of view, take the Chinese example, let them have internet but the college gets to choose the sites they can view. Better still, let the professor choose; and not just the sites they are allowed to view but when they are allowed to and whether or not to use the internet at all.

I know that the laptop itself is a distraction, even if it's not connected to the net, but you can at least control some aspects of the teaching process. And if you really want to go all the way "commie" on them, you can always enforce the use of college disposed laptops only, and have some linux based OS that you can fully control. Evil? yes, annoying? yes, effective? of course.

That's the theory. The reality is that everything from IM chats to online shopping excursions take place over the in-class ether, distracting everyone involved: the student, his or her neighbors, and potentially the professors, who may watch their grip on the classroom slowly slipping away. It's not much of a surprise, then, that a backlash appears to be brewing.

Speaking as a new grad student, it is so distracting when you are trying to concentrate on a lecture and the person in front of you is playing World of Warcraft. WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS? ARRRRRGHGHGHGHGH! The only thing worse is the course I am taking where the person sitting next to me is quite often sound asleep and snoring during lectures. ...and this is in a class of 13. Gee, I wonder if the professor noticed?

Count me among the "backlash" group: I wrote a somewhat long blog post on the subject called [url= http://jseliger.wordpress.com/...-hardly-a-surprise/] Laptops, students, distraction: hardly a surprise[/url]. Too few students—myself included—have the discipline to pay attention to class and take relevant notes rather than visiting Facebook (and Ars) and what not.

Originally posted by TheFerenc:And VibeDog, it isn't "back bending" at all. It's a way to have the students be responsible for their own education. Choose to be distracted in class? So be it, but accept the consequences of that choice. Personal responsibility. If they haven't learned it by the time they leave college, I doubt they ever will...

The big problem is, those that want to goof off in class end up distracting others around them. It's one thing to be someone who goofs off. It's another to be a menace to those around you who are trying to study the material.

At the very least, the person goofing off with their laptop is distracting the people beside them (or two or three), the person in front who has to contend with any noise being made, and the people behind, who see the screen as it's in the sight line of the material being presented.

I have no problems with people using laptops to learn, or even goofing off. However, when someone's goofing off distracts others, then it's a big problem.

Laptops at the primary (elem/MS/HS) levels are a misleading and false promise. They do not, in and of themselves, teach students any more than traditional methods. In many cases, I believe they actually end up dumbing down classes. Particularly hard hit are area such as history, where students are sometimes told to make "power point presentations" on a subject, rather than type a paper. That's a problem because PPP's, by default, contain less critical thinking and detailed analysis; they are designed for summarizing, not reporting.

It's also a false promise because many teachers assume the kids already know how to effectively use the technology. However, most kids simply gravitate towards easy methods for research, and aren't being taught how to analyze and sort biased from unbiased sources, etc. AKA- It's On Teh Interwebz So It Must Be True syndrome.

Kids need a computer course directly, and perhaps some integrated computer time in class with a teacher showing them where useful and appropriate information exists, and how to sort through it. Beyond that though, there really isn't much different on a laptop from traditional methods. Kids need to read the books (ebook or paper), have discussions in class (in person or via forum/Conferencing), and they need to type analytical papers (NOT Powerpoint presentations). The technology can be useful, but it's NOT a cureall for what ails our schools. In fact, it's this very attitude that technology is the savior, and the pouring of all our moneys into it that is killing schools.